QUOTE: too much drama and not enough action

And I used to complain about this a lot.  As recent storytelling trends at the Big Two have shown me, my complaints then were unfounded.  Today's staff just doesn't know when to leave enough up to the fans' imaginations.

1. Angel's story with his mother was like Hamlet's. Didn't the characters acknowledge this in the story?
2. The Promise mother was lost for years, then meets her adult son who rejects her.
3. The teasers of Xavier with the mutant child's mother who was interested in him were very reminiscent of soap opera storytelling where the characters are in an episode but the plot does not advance.

I can see where someone could think it in regards to those issues.

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Those are definitely "soap opera" elements, and exactly the kind of things I try to include in my stories -- smaller human stuff, peppered thru the bigger, broader strokes.

Answer me this, tho: would you consider the stories you list more about the "soap opera" than, say, a Lee/Ditko issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, with Parker's latest worries about money and Aunt May's health, his troubles with JJJ, his romantic upheavals?

Answer me this, tho: would you consider the stories you list more about the "soap opera" than, say, a Lee/Ditko issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, with Parker's latest worries about money and Aunt May's health, his troubles with JJJ, his romantic upheavals?

I think your balance is fine, but I like Stan Lee style stories. It was just easier to recall soap opera elements in these issues than the first year of the title.

As for the reviewer, maybe he was looking for something more Justice League or Law and Order instead of X-Men. I'd chalk it up to personal taste.

Salvaging a double post:

Based on the positive reviews of the earlier works he liked I can't guess why these stories have more drama than those stories. I'd write the criticism off.

The soap opera element is as much a Marvel quality as anything. I've been re-reading my Marvel Masterworks of the original X-Men and just about every issue Cyclops and Marvel Girl are secretly mooning over one another. That's a soap opera element but there's action against Magneto and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Juggernaut, the Sentinels and it's in every issue. Not once during X-Men: The Hidden Years was there an issue that didn't have action in it. It's not like JB had full issues  of the X-Men sitting around a breakfast table (with pages of nothing but face shots) impressing us with their snappy dialogue like certain writers like to do nowadays. 

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In his most excellent HISTORY OF COMICS, Jim Steranko tells the story of Mac Raboy, artist on CAPTAIN MARVEL JR. turning in a story and the editor, upon flipping thru it, pointing out that Raboy had done one page -- ONE PAGE, mind you! -- that was all "talking heads", then considered a No-No.

Raboy's response was to take back ALL the pages and TEAR THEM UP!!

That tale really stuck in my head, and, with the exception of a couple of times I have done it for a specific effect, I have carefully avoided whole pages of "talking heads".